US judge orders Trump administration to explain tarp obscuring Kennedy Center facade

By Mike Scarcella

WASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Wednesday ordered U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to explain why it placed a tarpaulin on the façade of the Kennedy Center after the Republican leader’s name was removed from the building by a court order.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said the administration must report “the purpose and condition of the tarp and scaffolding” present at the iconic building by July 31.

The tarp was placed when workers peeled off Trump’s name in a pre-dawn operation this month, following Cooper’s orders from the Trump administration to illegally add Trump’s name to the facade in December.

The White House and the Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In the lawsuit filed by Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, a Kennedy Center board member, a judge last month ordered Trump’s name removed from signs at the Washington theater complex, blocking plans to close it for a two-year renovation starting July 4. The Trump administration asked the federal appeals court to put that order on hold.

Beatty’s lawyers said in a filing this week with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the “semi-permanent tarp” hiding the late President John F. Kennedy’s name from public view at the center appears to be an effort by the Trump administration to “prevent the restoration of the status quo that existed before the renaming.”

Beatty described the obstruction of the front as “a minor act of defiance”.

(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)